A Famous Actress as a Beggar.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 428, 14 December 1889, Page 6

A Famous Actress as a Beggar.

One of the late Sir Francis Doyle's sweetest and most touching poems was a ballad (which, I believe, he never published) having for its subject a tale told to him by a fair descendant of Mrs Jordon. the famous actress, whoso equal Macieady used to say that he had never seen on the stage. This tale related that one winter day Mrs Jordan passed in her carriage a poor woman singing with feeble voice in the whoso stony look of hopeless misery touched the successful actress' tender heart. Stopping her carriage, Mrs Jordan told her footman to invite the poor woman to call at her address in a street clo?e at hand. The two women were soon alone together, and the poor street singer told her sympathising interlocutor that she was a widow and had just been turned out by her landlord, together with her starving children, into the frost bound street. Mrs Jordan quickly borrowed the wretched woman's shawl ar.d bonnet and the skirt of her work dress, and, putting them on, told her to wait by the tire until she herself returned. In a few moments the silence of the streets was broken by a heavenly voico issuing clear and sweet from the throat of the most exquisite ballad singer ever heard on the English boards. From beneath a tattered bonnet, from within a greasy shawl, That unebbing tide of music filled with life the soul 8 of all ; And the touch as of a spirit to their fluttered pulses cluiik, With a strange enchanting rapture, as that ragged woman sung. Arrested by a voice the like of which they had never heard, the workmen paused on their homeward journey to thrust pennies into the singer's hand. Presently the windows of the house that she passed opened sponcaneously, and a stream of silver fell at her feet. For three-quarters of an hour s>he continued to gather in the money harvest, which included several gold pieces contributed by carriage folk. Then she hurried to the starving widow's side, restored the borrowed bonnet, shawl, and I gown, and poured a flood of money into her lap. The ballad ends : Not in vain from out her bosom had that music torrent leapt. For beyond her earthborn hearers star-crowned . angels smiled and wept: And a solemn utterance floated from our Father's place of rest. Lovers of their fellow-creatures are the beings I love best. — Letter to x London Daily Tolegraph.'

A paper says the idea that; the penguin is mightier than the swordfiah is an error. Well, perhaps so ; but the important question is : Will the penguin deeper than the sword ? , A man who used a stone jar for a pillow stuffed it with straw to enchance its comfort.